Our Childrens Dentistry Services Can Prevent Tooth Decay

We provide preventative oral health care as part of our childrens dentistry services.  Preventing infection and disease is extremely important for both adults and children.  Many parents make the mistake of thinking that their child's baby teeth are not as important as adult teeth.  While it is true that baby teeth will eventually fall out, they serve an important role in the long-term oral health of your child.  Baby teeth help kids to learn how to speak and to speak clearly.  They hold a place for adult teeth and make it possible to eat comfortably.  When they fall out too soon, problems can arise with their speech and the adult teeth may come in incorrectly.  In fact, many children need orthodontics because their baby teeth fall out too soon.

We can help to prevent this from happening by keeping their teeth as healthy and strong as possible.  When teeth are in good health, they are less likely to fall out when bumped into or hit with a ball.  When kids play, accidents are common so preventing tooth decay is extremely important.
As part of our childrens dentistry services, we educate kids and parents on what they can do to keep teeth in good health at home. It starts with a healthy diet that includes green leafy vegetables, nuts, cheese, yogurt, crunchy fruits and veggies and lean protein.  By eating these foods every day, instead of sugary snacks like cookies and crackers, your child's teeth will naturally be stronger.  We also recommend drinking plenty of water in the place of juice and soda.  After brushing their teeth for bed, you should also avoid giving them milk to drink as that will deposit sugar on their teeth for the entire night and may cause tooth decay.

Brushing and flossing your kid's teeth should also start early.  Even as a baby you can use a washrag to clean their gums.  Once teeth start to come in, use a toothbrush that is age appropriate.  Every few months, take your kids to the store and let them pick out their own toothbrush.  There are so many colors, styles and characters now that they can select one that they are excited to use.  If possible, buy one that is battery operated so that the brush moves and they get a better clean.

In addition to a good routine at home, bring your child into our office for teeth cleanings twice a year.  Since we provide childrens dentistry services, our staff does an excellent job at keeping our young patients comfortable during their dental exam and teeth cleaning.  By seeing a friendly face, your kids will be more excited to go to the dentist.  If they are worried about a particular procedure, we can take it slow and provide pain relief as needed.  These regular teeth cleanings allow us to remove bacteria and plaque from their teeth in order to prevent cavities and gum disease from forming.  Preventing tooth decay takes a team approach with you as a parent actively involved at home and us providing the professional cleanings and treatments necessary to fight cavities.

Family Dentist  >  Dental Office

Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before a Cosmetic Dentistry Appointment

Cosmetic dentistry is an excellent way to improve your smile, transforming imperfections into beautiful teeth.  With so many treatment options and a world of possibilities it is important to narrow down what your goals and objectives are before meeting with the dentist.  This will ensure that you can clearly articulate what you want to accomplish.

When scheduling an appointment with our office, we recommend that you have your teeth cleaned and examined at the same time.  This way we can help to keep your teeth healthy and be sure that there are no lingering health issues that need to be addressed prior to starting any cosmetic work.  Once the examination is complete, pull out your list of notes and let us know what you don't like about your smile.

Before your appointment consider the following:
How much time do you have available?  Any type of dental work comes with a time commitment.  Whether it is one appointment or five, we need to know how much time you have available along with if you are on a deadline. For example, if you are getting married in six months we will want to know about it so that all of your treatments can be scheduled accordingly.  This may influence which treatments we recommend.  Simultaneously, if it is hard for you to take time off of work we will want to know so that we can look for appointment times that would work for you and allow for recovery over the weekend.  There is no right or wrong answer; we just need the information to plan accordingly.

How white do you want your teeth?  It is important for you to feel comfortable with your teeth.  In our cosmetic dentistry office, we need to know how white you want your teeth to get.  Whether completing a teeth whitening procedure or applying dental veneers or crowns, we need to know the shade you are comfortable with so that they can be created accordingly.

What don't you like about your smile?  Come with a list of the things that you would improve if you could.  This should be as specific as possible so that we can be sure to address each issue.  For example, “I don't like my smile” makes it difficult to provide treatment recommendations.  On the other hand, “I don't like the gaps in between my teeth or their color” is easy to understand and to identify treatment solutions.  We can easily see what issues are preventing your smile from looking perfect, but it is unnecessary to treat something that isn't bothering you.

Do you like the appearance of your gums?  Many people suffer from a gummy smile where too much of their gum tissue shows for comfort.  Others struggle with a receding gum line.  We can help you with both problems and need to know how you feel about your gums.

Our cosmetic dentistry office has a plethora of options for treating your teeth and correcting any imperfections in your smile.  By coming prepared to discuss what you want, we can make more thorough treatment recommendations.

Teeth Whitening Service  >  Dental Veneers

Dental Implants Are a Permanent Alternative to Dentures

If you are wearing dentures, dental implants are an alternative solution that look and feel like natural teeth. While dentures are practical and provide patients with the appearance of a full set of teeth, they never feel quite natural. Implants, on the other hand, feel the same as the rest of your teeth so there is no way to tell which teeth are natural and which teeth are replacements.

Over seventy percent of adults over the age of sixty-five experience some form of tooth loss. Even young adults suffer from this age old problem, with around thirty percent of those over thirty five suffering from tooth loss. If this happens to you, it is important to decide how you want to replace the missing tooth. An experienced cosmetic dentist can help you to determine which solution will best fit with your lifestyle and the goals you have for your appearance.

Dental implants are ideal for people that have an active lifestyle and don't want their teeth to slow them down. Once the implant is installed, patients can eat all of their favorite foods, speak normally, and care for the implant as they do the rest of their teeth. This is a brush and go solution because as long as remember to practice good oral hygiene at home, along with visiting the dentist twice a year, you will never have to think about your replacement tooth again.

How the Process Works

In order to receive dental implants, you need to schedule a consultation with an experienced dentist. Our staff are experts at using this technology and able to determine if your gums and jawbone are in good enough health to schedule the procedure. If they are not, there are specific dental treatments that can get them ready. During your examination, a mold will be taken of your mouth so that the lab can create a synthetic tooth, or teeth, that is the right size and shape to blend in with your other natural teeth. If you want to have your teeth whitened now is an excellent time to do so because the synthetic tooth will be made to match your natural ones.

The first step in the procedure is to have a titanium post implanted under the surface of your gums. This piece will be secured to your jawbone and eventually the two will fuse together, creating an extremely durable synthetic root system. An abutment will be attached at the surface of your gums. Once the gums are healed the new tooth will be attached and put into position. This allows a cosmetic dentist to create a perfectly straight beautiful smile that looks and feels amazing. The entire process takes several months since your gums and bone need to heal after the implant procedure. During that time, you may want to wear temporary or immediate dentures so that no one will know that you don't have a full set of teeth. To learn more about the process or to schedule an examination, call today.

General Dentistry  >  Cosmetic Dentist

As a General Dentist We Treat Athletes That Have Injured Their Teeth

If you are an athlete, a trip to the general dentist is in order before you start the game.  According to the American Dental Association, the majority of adult tooth injuries are due to playing sports.  Since most adults only play casually with friends, this means that even a pickup game of basketball or tossing a ball with your kids can lead to tooth damage.  In order to protect your teeth, you need to keep them in good health.

We recommend that you have your teeth cleaned twice a year so that we can remove the bacteria and plaque from your teeth that can lead to a tooth infection.  It is important to keep your teeth cavity free and to prevent gum disease because if a random ball hits your face and there is an infection, your tooth will be more likely to break or be knocked out.  Think of it like a pond that becomes frozen in the winter.  A solid sheet of ice can support kids playing on it for hours, but one small crack can cause the entire thing to shatter when someone steps on it.  Teeth that are infected are like a pond with a small crack.  They cannot withstand the impact of something hitting them.

It is also important to strengthen your teeth by brushing with a soft toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste.  Fluoride is a mineral that when placed onto your teeth will help them to be stronger.  You can further strengthen your teeth by eating a healthy diet that contains lean protein, nuts, cheese, yogurt, and green leafy vegetables.  This, combined with trips to our general dentist office can keep your teeth and gums in excellent health.

We also recommend that you wear a mouth guard while playing sports.  This prevents hundreds of thousands of injuries on an annual basis.  When considering high school and football players alone, the American Dental Association claims that over 200,000 injuries are prevented every year due to wearing a mouth guard.  When you consider how many different sports and age groups there are, it is clear that this simple device is a fantastic way to protect yourself from injury.

If you take these precautionary steps and still injure your teeth, we can restore them in our general dentist office.  If a tooth is cracked or chipped, we can use a dental veneer to correct it by placing the veneer onto the surface of the tooth.  It will look completely natural and make it possible to eat and speak like normal.  If the tooth is severely cracked or a lot of enamel is missing, we can use a dental crown to restore the tooth instead.  This provides a greater level of stability because it can surround the tooth entirely.  This is a durable procedure that can help your teeth to function as good as new after a serious injury.  If a tooth has been knocked out, we can replace it as well by using either dental implants or a dental bridge.

If your tooth has been injured, schedule a dental appointment right away.

Emergency Dentist  >  Dental Office

Get the Facts About Dental Veneers and How They Are Used

What are dental veneers?

Dental veneers are some of the most versatile tools we have when it comes to correcting defects in your teeth. Dental veneers, also known as ceramic or porcelain veneers, are extremely thin pieces of porcelain that we use to replace the damaged enamel on your teeth. The reason dental veneers are so effective is their thinness. Being paper thin, these veneers take on many of the same qualities as naturally occurring enamel. They are extremely hard, which gives you a long-term solution when your enamel has become damaged. They are also extremely brittle, just like enamel, and so you will need to protect your teeth the same way you would protect natural teeth. Being extremely malleable, veneers can be molded to fix a variety of problems with the teeth.

Do dental veneers work for everyone?
Dental veneers are an extremely versatile solution, and in most cases can be used by anyone. For us to make sure that you are an excellent candidate for dental veneers, we will schedule an initial consultation and also a first examination. During your examination, we will make sure that your mouth is in excellent condition and primed to replace your enamel with the veneers. If we find any issues that might become a problem later on in the process, we will work on solutions so that your dental veneers placement is seamless. On rare occasions, during this initial examination, we will find that there are people who cannot get dental veneers and for them we will explore other potential solutions to damaged teeth.

How are dental veneers attached?
As soon as we know that you are an excellent candidate to receive dental veneers, we can proceed to the next step. This step involves selecting the color and shade that you want for your veneers. We will have your veneers custom made to fit your needs, including the shade that you choose from.  That information will along with an impression of your teeth will be sent to a dental lab for the final veneers to be created.  In the meantime, we will prepare your tooth by removing a portion of your enamel to make sure that the veneers fit flat against the rest of your tooth. Typically this is only a few millimeters but it allows the veneer to fit flush with the tooth.  We will then place a temporary veneer on top of it.

Once we have the permanent veneers, we will fit them to your tooth. After making sure that the color is right, we will make any slight adjustments so that the veneer fits the tooth perfectly. We will also check to make sure that your bite is not affected, and once all the elements are perfectly in sync we will cement the dental veneers to your teeth.

What problems do dental veneers fix?
Dental veneers can fix a whole range of challenges. They are an extremely durable and versatile solution. We use them extensively to fix minor breaks, cracks, and chips in teeth. It is often preferable to use veneers over other procedures like dental crowns because veneers only require a small portion of your enamel to be removed. Veneers are also used for cosmetic fixes like making your teeth whiter, straightening them, and correcting minor bite and placement issues.

Teeth Whitening Service  >  Dental Implants

Dental Implants Are a Popular Solution for Tooth Loss

More people are getting dental implants than ever before.  This is because people around the country have discovered that they do not have to live with the stigma of tooth loss. Tooth loss can be extremely traumatic for some people, especially when the tooth loss happens at a young age. Dealing with the embarrassment is compounded by the fact that tooth loss forces people to make lifestyle changes, including how they eat and speak. With dental implants, you do not have to deal with those kinds of changes.

There are numerous technologies and methods for dealing with tooth loss. However, none are as advanced as dental implants. While dentures and bridges address the fundamental problem, which is a missing tooth, they do nothing to brace the tooth or to address the root of the problem. This means that these solutions have to be adhered to the surface of the mouth somehow, typically with wires or dental cement. On the other hand, dental implants focus their attention on the root. In fact, a dental implant is a tiny titanium screw that is placed into the jawbone, taking the place of a natural tooth's root. This provides a strong and stable platform under the gum line, which then allows us to place a dental crown, or tooth, on top of the abutment.

Getting dental implants is a lot simpler than it used to be a few years ago.  Simultaneously, science continues to dispel some of the popular myths that surround dental implants. For the longest time people have been looking at dental implants, and elsewhere around the country, as a purely aesthetic endeavor. This is an understandable misconception. When you get a dental implant, you are going to be getting a perfect tooth that is almost an identical replica of your original one. There are no wires holding it in place, so all you have is a new tooth. In fact, we can give you a tooth, or teeth, that look far better than your original ones.  Naturally this perfection has led to the idea that all we care about is the aesthetics. Nothing could be further from the truth, and science is starting to show this. We know, for example, that when you use a dental implant to replace a lost tooth, the implants acts like a naturally occurring root. It creates a symbiotic relationship with the jawbone, which in turn allows the jawbone to receive stimulation from the prosthetic. This helps the jaw to avoid resorption and also keeps the facial structure from a potential collapse.

There are already 3 million people across the nation that have gotten dental implants. What we know is that the rate of dental implants is increasing annually, but that there are a lot of people still using antiquated technology. In our dentist office, we encourage every one of the 15 million Americans that are using bridges or dentures to consider switching to get the best looking, most effective, longest lasting tooth replacement available today.

Teeth Whitening Service  >  Dental Veneers

Your Holiday Pictures Will Sparkle With Help From Our Teeth Whitening Procedure

As the holidays are approaching, call our office to schedule a teeth whitening procedure. This is one of the easiest ways to improve the appearance of your smile. It can turn your dull teeth into spectacular ones, restore your youthful appearance, and get you ready to smile for hours of family photos. If you are like most families, there's always that one family member capturing every moment. Each of these pictures and moments will be special, so it is important to look and feel your very best. After all, these are the images that will grace your hallway and photo albums for decades to come.
For most people, preparing for the holidays involves finding the right sweater or dress, finding that old family recipe, getting their hair done, and preparing for all of those interesting holiday moments. Taking care of your teeth should also be at the top of your list because your teeth make a major impact in your appearance. We suggest that you visit us for a teeth cleaning and dental exam so we can remove the plaque making your teeth appear dirty or stained. We can also ensure that you do not have any cavities or infections and treat them if you do. Afterward, we can whiten your teeth so the stains are removed, and they are transformed from a dull shade of yellow to brilliant white.

Our teeth whitening procedure is better than what you can buy in the store.

Once you decide to whiten your teeth, you should take steps to ensure the procedure is successful. While it is easy to walk down the drugstore aisle and select a whitening kit, there are risks involved with this. To start, this portion of the industry is unregulated. That means there is no set consistency among the products you can buy. You could try a whitening kit that barely brightens your teeth, one that works decently, or one that works well. The problem is, you may not know how it will work before you buy it. As a dentist, we are trained medical professionals, and all of our teeth whitening procedures produce dramatic results. There is no guesswork involved when visiting our office, and with limited time to prepare for the holidays, you can rest assured that your smile will be beautiful.
Another reason our procedure works better is because our solution is professional-grade. It is designed to penetrate the enamel so the process of oxidization begins. This is where the molecules inside of your teeth change to reflect less light and appear colorless. As a result, your smile will look bright and white. What you buy in the store will not work as well, because it is typically designed to remove surface stains only. This can help, but your teeth may still look yellow.

We can help you look amazing in time for the holidays, so call and schedule your teeth whitening today.

Dental Implants  >  Dental Veneers